28
MARCH/APRIL 2015
50 Years Ago
March 6: Helicopter Makes
First Non-Stop Flight Across
North America
Piloted by Capt. J.R. Williford, a
Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King helicopter
made the first non-stop helicopter
flight across North America. It
traveled 2,116 miles, setting a new
record for helicopters. It took off
from a carrier in San Diego, Calif.,
and flew to the USS Franklin D.
Roosevelt in Mayport, Fla. Williford
and his crew had to carefully watch
their fuel usage and flew at near-stall
speed during the venture.
Helicopters had been in use since
the first operational prototype was
built in 1936. Innovator Igor Sikorsky designed the first helicopter
to be mass produced in 1942. The
SH-3A Sea King was the world’s first
amphibious helicopter and one of
the first rotorcraft to use turboshaft
engines. It was the primary helicopter used to retrieve manned space
capsules, starting with MercuryAtlas 7 in May 1962. The Sea King
line was retired in 2006.
April 11: Deadly Tornadoes
Strikes U.S. Midwest
Dubbed “the Palm Sunday
tornado outbreak,” this event
occurred April 11-12 in Indiana,
Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois
and Iowa. Forty-seven tornadoes
touched down, killing 271 people
and injuring 1,500. It was the deadliest tornado outbreak in Indiana history. During that week, there was a
total of 51 significant and 21 violent
tornadoes.
The tornadoes occurred in a
swath 450 miles wide from Clinton
County, Iowa, to Cuyahoga County,
Ohio, and a swath 200 miles long
from Kent County, Mich., to Montgomery County, Ind. The outbreak
lasted just short of 12 hours. The severe nature of the storms prompted
the U.S. Weather Bureau to begin
using the designations “tornado
watch” and “tornado warning” because the public did not understand
the differenc